Photogrammetry and computer vision techniques are capable of providing astonishing levels of accuracy and precision when the equipment and processes are well calibrated. However, sometimes (fairly often actually), it’s only necessary to obtain reasonably good results, but to do so quickly. In these cases, there is no need, and no point, in spending extra time or effort (or money) on a high end camera calibration process.
This Stellacore technical note describes a simple camera calibration process, applied to a smart phone camera. The process is completed from scratch in less than 5 minutes yet produces results supporting 3D model reconstruction to better than centimeter level accuracy.